United States or São Tomé and Príncipe ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
A wide flat was there, washed on one side by the river. Here more than a thousand mounds arose. Alas! could I ever hope to find her! "Do you know where they have laid her?" I asked, tremblingly. "Yes," said the woman, confidently. Hope returned faintly. She led the way. The moon beamed out brightly from behind a cloud, illumining the waste of mounds. The river murmured solemnly along the shore.
The dark shadows lying so still on the dirty white mounds had a stealthy, crouching look, and the large soft leaves of a plane-tree flapped helplessly against the shale with the air of important people who whisper 'Alas! Abel was on ahead. Suddenly he turned round, excited as a boy. 'They've started! he cried. 'Hark at the music! They allus begin with the organ.
The stand was placed to face north and the long lines, two of them stretched away east and west. About a mile south Stonehenge is visible, and from Signal Mound in the rear of the reviewing grounds the river and Old Sarum can be seen in the distance. All about the plains huge mounds raised by the Druidical Celts rear themselves, of varying sizes, some twenty feet high, others smaller.
General officers had their tents erected in deep excavations surrounded by embankments of earth, and special duty men had each prepared for themselves burrows in the ground, many of which were creditable specimens of engineering. One was reminded, in riding over the plain, of the colonies of prairie dogs with their burrows and mounds.
We had now reached a low waste of unenclosed land, with sedge and gorse pricking up everywhere through the snow, and with long lines of pollards marking the bed of a frozen stream. Near the line was a deserted brick-kiln, surrounded by long uneven mounds and ridges of ice, with three poplars mounting guard over it.
On the way to Cape Leuca he passes certain mounds whose origin he believes to be artificial and the work of a prehistoric race. I fancy his conjecture has proved correct. On page 258, speaking of an Oscan inscription, he mentions Mommsen, which shows that he kept himself up to date in such researches....
Cyprus was at once surrendered to him by its local kings, as was all Phœnicia, except Tyre. He besieged Tyre for seven months, with great mounds and siege artillery on the land side, while a fleet of two hundred triremes watched it by sea. During the seventh month of the siege he dreamed that Herakles greeted him in a friendly manner from the walls of Tyre, and called upon him to come in.
The great age of these mounds and inclosures is shown by their relation to the primeval forests in which most of them were discovered. I say primeval forests, because they seemed primeval to the first white men who explored them.
His donkey stumbled twice in succession, and he went right over its head. At the bottom of the hill we tethered the donkeys, and at once began the ascent. The distance up was said to be two miles, which took us about two hours to climb. The first part was over grassy mounds, but the latter portion involved a real scramble.
The mounds are not devoid of vegetation, for sagebrush, cacti, and other desert genera grow quite profusely over their surface; but they are wholly barren of trees or large bushes, and except in the plaza the ruin area is uncultivated.
Word Of The Day